1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and device for on-screen display of program information in a grid of cells comprising first type cell rows in one dimension and second type cell rows in another dimension, wherein the cells in each of said first kind cell rows are adapted to display information on programs from a particular program-provider in sequential order of time, the method further comprising the generation of a user-controlled cursor to point to a particular cell of the grid.
2. Description of the Related Art
Such method and device for the on-screen display of program information is disclosed in U.S. pat. No. 5,479,268. The main purpose of the method of this prior art document is to present to the user a complete on-screen review of the TV-programs which he is able to receive from a plurality of TV-channels during a period of, e.g., one full day. With this method, the user may scan the grid by means of a cursor, point the cursor to a particular TV-program and subsequently, select that particular program for receiving and viewing and/or recording that program. Usually, the grid will be much larger than the screen and then the cursor presents a convenient tool to scroll the grid with the TV-program information across the screen in either or both of the two dimensions in a manner similar to the well-known scrolling of spreadsheets on the screen of a monitor in computer technology.
In the above referenced document, the horizontal cell-rows are each displaying information on the programs of a particular TV-channel and the vertical cell rows (the columns) display the TV-programs which are transmitted by the plurality of TV-channels during a time slot of predetermined duration (e.g., one half hour). Therefore, the user may easily scan the TV-programs of a particular TV-channel by scanning the cursor along a horizontal cell row and he may easily scan the TV-programs transmitted during a particular time slot by scanning the cursor along a vertical cell row.
A drawback of the prior art method, however is, that the duration of the programs is usually not equal to the duration of the time slot. Therefore, in the prior art document, a program of one hour necessarily occupies two cells of a horizontal row and a program of one and a half-hour occupies three cells, etc. More particularly, in the prior art document, the information of a one and a half-hour program is contained in a first cell and the next two cells are kept blank.
A further drawback occurs when a TV-program lasts less then the predetermined time slot. For instance news-programs may often last only ten minutes or one quarter of an hour. Then one cell should contain the information of e.g., two programs. This is not well possible because the cell is usually too small to contain the information of more than one program. Moreover, then it is not possible to select a particular program for reception or recording by merely selecting its cell. A solution for this second drawback may be found in making the predetermined time slot shorter, e.g.,one quarter of an hour, however,this would, of course, double the size of the grid with much more blank cells for the programs of larger duration than one quarter of an hour.
The present invention seeks to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior art method. The method of the invention is therefore characterized in that, under control of the cursor, the program information contained in one or more first type cell rows is shifted with respect to the program information contained in the first type cell row to which said particular cell belongs so as to improve the time alignment of the program information displayed in the second type cell row to which said particular cell belongs. The invention is based on the recognition of the fact that it is not necessary to time-align the program information in all the second type-cell-rows of the grid simultaneously. It is sufficient that only the second type cell-row to which the cursor points, is time aligned. When the user is interested in the program transmitted during another time slot he/she can simply replace the cursor to a program transmitted during that time slot (preferably the program of the same channel, i.e. on the same first type cell row) and he/she will find the programs in that cell-row being properly time-aligned. With the method of the invention, each cell can be filled with the information of one program and of only one program, irrespective of the duration of the programs.
The time-alignment may, e.g., be achieved by shifting the programs as a result of comparing the start time of the program pointed to by the cursor with the start and stop times of the programs in the other first type cell rows. This method however, results in a relatively poor time-alignment when the duration of the program pointed to by the cursor is large. The time-alignment may be improved when the method according to the invention is characterized in that the program information contained in one or more first type cell rows is shifted with respect to the program information contained in the first type cell row to which said particular cell belongs as a result of comparing the start and stop times of the programs in said one or more first type cell rows with the current time, when the current time falls between the start and stop times of the program pointed to by the cursor.
The method according to the invention may be additionally characterized by at least one additional on-screen button (Now) for shifting the program information in one or more first type cell rows so as to improve the time alignment of the program information displayed in one of the second type cell rows with the current time. This function may be activated by pointing the cursor to this additional button and it allows the user to view, at a glance in said one second type cell row, the programs which are actually transmitted.
In the above referenced prior art document and in the description of the present application, the programs displayed are TV-programs transmitted by a plurality of TV-program providers. However, the method of the present invention may also be used for other purposes in which program information is on-screen displayed, for instance an internet site may display information on a plurality of conference-sessions in a grid of cells, wherein the cells of each first type cell row display information on sessions organized by a particular conference-provider or in a particular conference center in time-sequential order of the time in which the sessions are held. The user may point the cursor to a particular cell and select that cell when he is interested to receive more detailed information on the conference displayed in that cell.